Calipers

[van7559]

picked up a hornady digital caliper from sportsmans warehouse tonite and after I got home and opened it, I am not all that impressed. I am a fuckin newb when it comes to reloading and am not really sure what quality is in this stuff. The digital rcbs one they had I was able to open, and it seemed to be a hell of a lot nicer. Am I fretting about small shit or is the one I got junk?

[ray1970]

Hornady usually has decent stuff. I prefer a standard dial caliper to the digital ones myself. When it comes to dial calipers I tend to spend more on nicer ones. I use them quite a bit at work and the sets that are in the $40 to $60 price range are typically of poor quality. The ones in the $140 and up range are pretty decent.

I'm sure for your intended use the set you bought will work just fine.

[van7559]

my father in law is gonna give me a nice set of dials. He is a machinst by trade, and says dials are hard to beat

[zteknik]

my father in law is gonna give me a nice set of dials. He is a machinst by trade, and says dials are hard to beat

+1 if you can correctly read them(takes practice) there spot on.
I have a set of Mitutoyo callipers that I use for almost everything and they haven't been off yet (takes me a try or 2 to read it right )

[ray1970]

I'd recommend Starrett.

[BPTactical]

I have Brown & Sharpe, Yuasa,digital and dial Mitsutoyo and an Enco one. For the majority of stuff I use a $20.00 off brand I picked up at a pawn shop. They have been amazingly accurate and tough. If it is something I need a bit better accuracy I will use my digital. That thing is unreal. The important thing is repeatability. You can have the best of the best but if the needle bounces around when zero'd they are worthless.
If you have a choice get the largest dial you can, the further the graduations are apart on the face the better resolution you have.

[spqrzilla]

You need good calipers but not great ones. We don't work in tens of thousandths of an inch.

[jerrymrc]

You need good calipers but not great ones. We don't work in tens of thousandths of an inch.

I will agree. Yes I have $200 calipers but for reloading I use a set of stainless Cen-Tech Digital that is cheap and accurate. In actual back to back measurements it stays right with my Fowler digital that was over $200 when I bought it.

[Zombie Steve]

$35 set of Lyman dial calipers work fine for me. When it's really important (sizing lead boolits), I'm using a micrometer anyway...

[sabot_round]

I've been using a Lyman dial caliper since I started reloading well over a decade ago. It is very accurate and has worked well for me so I don't feel the need for replacement.